Travelling to make television programmes means I have some unusual food memories. In Pasto, Colombia, I was taken to a restaurant where I chose my meat for the evening from a cage of white rats. It tasted perfectly good - like rabbit.

You have to be damn certain you're putting something better in its place.

Recently, I had a hip resurfaced. It's different from a hip replacement because it's done with titanium. I like to think that it's the consequence of riding horses so strenuously, but I fear it's much more mundane and was just early-onset arthritis.

I hate flying. My stomach churns at the mere thought of it.

I would venture to guess that if I was a construction worker... who requested a transfer to another department for the betterment of his family, I would be commended for it. But because it's sports, there's just so much passion added to it.

Totalitarians always want to kill culture. But imagine life without football, Faulkner, or Bob Dylan. It's not life.

m so fortunate to have done what I love to do for so long, but the day I retired was one of the best days of my life. Not because I was happy to get away from the sport, but because it was clear in my mind that I had done all I possibly could, and that it was time to go.

You can insult me - you can judge me on the football pitch - that's normal. But don't touch my family. Don't touch my parents. I love them more than everything on this earth.